


all love can be

by jemmasimmns (laurellance)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, RipFic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:45:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurellance/pseuds/jemmasimmns
Summary: In which Rip and Sara meet years later and reminisce about the past, present and what-ifs. Set post canon.





	all love can be

They meet in a Georgetown Ball sometime in the sixties, where policy makers bargained over women and cigarettes and women said nothing as they cared for children their husbands rarely took care of. Sara’s hair is coiffed up, her floor length dress a deep green. Her eyes are older, wiser, and she resembles a woman in her late thirties, early forties, even though she’s much older than that. There’s hints of gray in her hair, tucked between the blonde as if it were as natural as heartbreak to her, and healed scars run alongside her body, as if they were as much a part of her as tragedy was.

Rip’s older too, his brown hair is sprinkled with more prominent silver strands, and his eyes are worn, weary, as if they knew the future of all that was to be, as if he carried with him the weight of the world on his shoulders, a heavy, impossible burden that aged him so much more than time could have. He wears a black suit, shoes polished and hair tidy as he observes the people around him flirting and laughing and gambling with all the joy in the world: there is no bone dead realization that one day they will lose that innocence and trade their nativity for pessimism, and that their grandchildren and great children will carry that burden instead, the inconceivable truths that would carry on from father to daughter, mother to son as if it were as natural as breathing. 

He spots her from across the room, politely declining suitor after suitor as she held a martini glass in one hand, the other observing the room like a hawk, as if she was watching for something she could never have. She captures his gaze and stares back, as if she were welcoming him, inviting him over to cure her from the casual annoyances that were men from the time period.

“Miss Lance,” he asks her, “may I have the pleasure of inviting you to dance?” She smiles ruefully, bittersweetly, with all the intent in the world of saying yes but never being able to.

“Oh Rip,” she answers, “I thought you’d never ask.” He takes her hand and leads her into the wood floor, his one hand on her shoulder and the other on her waist. She relaxes under his touch, her posture softer, gentler on the floor, as if she were talking to an old acquaintance, to an old friend that she had never properly let go of. 

Rip starts. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it Sara?” There’s an unspoken agreement between the two of them, the kind that spoke of loves long gone, the kind of love that was saved for dreams because daring to hope, daring to consider the possibility was too painful for the mind to bear, so the only thing that could be done was savor the moment and hold onto it for as long as humanly possible. 

“Twenty missions, actually.” Sara chuckles at the statistic, her eyes alight with joy and wonder as she gazed into Rip’s eyes. “You would have liked the level eight anachronism in 1807: time pirates were selling Star Wars films, and no one had a clue what to do with them beside look at the pictures.” Time seems to slow, but time was to them nothing. They were both experienced time travelers after all, and aging had grown on them slowly, overnight, until they both woke up one day and realized their joints hurt from too much fighting, and the number of gray hairs present in their hair was indication that they weren’t young anymore. 

Rip gives a quiet laugh. “I would imagine so.” He pauses, to consider what to say next. “I’ve been working with John Constantine and his fellow magician, Zatanna Zatara, on tracking down malicious demons like Mollus, if you could imagine. They’re quite passionate in their rows with each other, and certainly louder than Miss Jiwe and Doctor Heywood ever were.”

Sara can picture it, John with his recklessness and appeal, and Zatanna with her skill and talent. “It really was some loud sex, wasn’t it?” She knows John, and if it’s anything she knows about him, it’s that he’s willing to try things. She’s sure he has magic kinks of his own.

“Quite loud, if I do say so myself. They’re especially fond of doing it on doors, walls and in bath tubs.” The music plays in the background, smooth crooning Jazz.

Sara laughs. “Ouch.” She adds, thinking out loud. “Nate and Amaya liked having sex in their rooms a lot, if Gideon’s records are true. There’s this shot of them doing it on the floor, with beer dripping around the desk from earlier.” This time, quieter. “I miss having them on the waverider.”

“They made their choice, Sara, there was nothing we could have done about it. Miss Jiwe had to go back to 1942, and Doctor Heywood chose to go back to Central City, to fight crime alongside the Flash.” This was the curse of time: the longer ago something was, the more it was remembered nostalgically, as if it were a polaroid shot of a night in Vegas, a snapshot was what it never truly was, but the shallow reflection of a pond. 

“That doesn’t make it any easier, Rip. Not after everything we’ve been through.” Sara remembers the day they had left, how tight Amaya had hugged her, and saying goodbye had been like losing a limb. She had desperately wanted them back, knowing they left by their own accord, and it still stung, an open wound nothing could heal. 

“I know, Sara, I was there.” Rip remembers it clearer than day, how tightly Doctor Heywood had controlled his emotions for Miss Jiwe, how he held her one last time, knowing that she had to leave when all he wanted to do was go to 1942 with her. But that had not been his destiny, and so he embraced her one last time, and gave her all he could, his heart, his love, his joy and his tragedy. 

Sara looks at him, eyes blinded by memories flying by in the instances of seconds, in the recollections of everything they once had, now out of grasp. “Nate looked up her future, you know. And I think he just sat there trying not to cry.”

“Miss Jiwe ultimately deserved better than what she was dealt,” Rip responds, noting from the corner of his eye that they were the only couple dancing on the floor. 

“Rip,” Sara answers, “we all deserved better than what we got. But we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for those experiences, right? God.” The lesson had been hard learned, filled with the bitterness that came from failure and the pain that sprung from open wounds without warning, flashbacks that she both loved and hated, for what they meant to her. 

“No, we wouldn’t.” Miranda and Jonas come to mind, the two lights of his life that had gone far too soon and far too fast. “Constantine showed me Earth-21 for my birthday, lead me to a house bordering the sea. Miranda and Jonas were there, wishing me a happy sixtieth birthday. Jonas was thirty five, Sara, and they were both alive.” 

“John means well, he just doesn’t know how to express it.” _Much like us_ , goes unsaid. “He showed me Laurel’s fiftieth birthday for mine on Earth-34. She was married to Oliver, had two kids with him. God, Rip, she was alive. She was _happy_.” She almost shakes her head at the memory, “You should have seen her laugh, you should have heard it. It was like a daydream, I didn’t want it to end.” 

Rip looks at her, looks at the hint of laugher lines around her eyes. “Your sister was always larger than life itself, always.” He adds. “I was on your earth, in 2116. They call her pretty bird.”

Sara smiles at the mention. “Dinah Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world. She was the best of me, in every way that mattered.”

“As was Miranda and Jones to me.” Rip replies in affirmation. The music had faded in the background and all that remained was the two of them, dancing on the floor to a song only the two of them could understand. It was as if time stood still, the way they conversed, stilted and timeless.

“We’re pathetic, aren’t we, Rip?” Sara asks, looking around the room. “We’re in a room with with socialites and politicians and all we’re doing is talking about the past.”

“So, what would you propose we tell them then? I can’t imagine the assassinations of 1968 would make for pleasant dinner conversation.” Rip asks, voice filled with wit and dry irony. 

“Personally, I was thinking the assassination of JFK. Nothing like a good murder to get people upset.” Sara replies, thinking to herself that this was absolutely absurd if she ever told anyone. It’s funny. 

“There really is nothing quite like the sixties, isn’t it Sara? All that turmoil, all that chaos. It makes for good television, if I were to quote your generation.” Rip tries to imagine the sixties with reality television. He blanches at what he imagines.

“Rip, I’m like your grandmother.” She pulls him closer to him. “And,” she whispers, lips close to his, “you’re not funny.” 

Rip pulls her into a kiss, a dizzying one in the moment, and he lets go soon after, twirling her around the dance floor as they danced the night away, oblivious to everyone else. 

She pulls him into another kiss, this time a slower one. Sara smiles contently at Rip after the kiss stops, looking every bit as pleased as the cat who got the cream. “You think everyone’s mortified enough, or should we engage in round three?” It’s like a game to them, the hide and seek of their feelings hiding under the facade of enjoyment, pushing their feelings back until they were lip to lip, and what happened next was unavoidable. It’s a game of push and pull, flirting with jokes only they would get and otherwise ignoring the school girl fluttering of butterflies inside her stomach when she allowed herself to think of Rip like that. 

“Miss Lance, I think they’re enjoying it, if that is to be believed. If you’ll notice, the group of gentlemen in the corner are openly staring.” Rip notes from the corner of his eye, observing the table of gambles trying, and failing, to hide their stares at the slit that ran down Sara’s gown. 

“Time to give them a show to enjoy, then.” Sara says with a grin, kissing him once more. Rip smiles at her, before kissing her back. They stay that way for a while, Sara tugging at the tucked in shirt he’s wearing, Rip keeping his hands firm on her hips. The ballroom is silent all around them, the harmonious sound of Jazz playing the background as backdrop for their dance of bodies and their dance of minds. 

Well, that is until the clock in the corner strikes midnight. Sara glares at the clock as if she wanted to break it, she did, and Rip barely manages to keep the annoyance off his face. “I told Gideon that if I wasn’t back by midnight, she could leave without me. Not sure she would” Sara huffs, “but I won’t risk it. Besides, my body’s less forgiving than what it once was. Damn shame about that.”

Rip nods his head in agreement. “I’ve noticed a steady growth of silver hairs in my scalp, which has been an annoyance, to say the least.” Sara laughs at the assessment. 

“At least it’s more noticeable on you than it is on me. You do look good with it, though. Very middle aged man type hair.” Sara makes no notice of her gray hairs, but Rip catches on regardless. He always did. 

“I must be going. I don’t trust Constantine and Zatanna by themselves,” _for good reason_ , Rip wants to add, for the number of times he’s caught them having sex on the walls of his timeship in the early morning. “They’ve probably started a bar fight somewhere, at the very least.”

“One last kiss then, for good luck.” Never goodbye, because they would do this again, over and over without fail. She kisses him one last time on the lips, soft and tender, and whispers to him. “Goodnight, Rip Hunter.”

He walks her back to the waverider, parked in an empty parking lot. “Goodnight, Sara Lance.” He watches as she walks away, and as he leaves, he can hear the sound of bar stools crashing against the wall, followed by swearing and the incantation of spell work. Rip hadn’t been wrong about John Constantine and Zatanna Zatara starting a bar fight. 

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone curious about Constantine/Zatanna, it's a ship from DC Comics.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at chochang.


End file.
